AFL-CIO Lays Into FCC Set-Top Plan

The AFL-CIO is putting its entire weight up against the FCC's set-top revamp proposal, which it says will harm consumers and workers and needs to be rethought.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (interestingly labeled a 'legislative" alert), William Samuel, director of the government affairs department, said the proposals a compulsory copyright scheme that "seriously undermines important

copyright protections," "upend" video market economics, Wheeler has said he is not undermining copyright but is instead trying to spur competition to the leased set-tops that

dominate the market to the tune of 99% of boxes. But Samuel said that "we should not permit competition to destroy an existing economic model without creating incentives for producers to create more content and expand networks and network speeds."

He said the proposal would facilitate privacy violations by navigation device makers and tech companies, who are not under the same FCC privacy regime (the FTC's lighter-tough privacy enforcement applies) as are MVPDS.

Earlier this week the AFL-CIO-affiliated Department of Professional Employees, which represents more than four million tech workers in various professions and, said it was joining what it called a "growing chorus" of unions and guilds opposed to the revise.